Irish style celtic-punk from Brazilian band The McMiners.
Yet another example of the international status of celtic-punk for you now with a great band hailing from Belo Horizonte in Brazil. It’s the sixth largest city in the country and in a country the size of Brazil that means its bigger than most counties over here! With over 2,500,000 in the city and over 5,000,000 in the surrounding area it stands to reason that their must be a bunch of celtic-punk fans with the talents to start a band and so in early 2012 The McMiners were born.
My previous knowledge of celtic-punk in Brazil has been confined to the absolutely brilliant band Lugh, who are in fact one of my favourites in the entire scene. To check them out why not go here and treat yourself! Both the Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly take in Brazil whenever they set sail to south America so the interest is there and seems to be growing. Their is a large Celtic diaspora of mainly Welsh and Irish in neighbouring Argentina and Uruguay that is well documented and Irish soldiers like William Brown in Argentina, Bernado Higgins in Chile and the St Patrick’s Brigade in Mexico played major roles in freeing their respective adopted countries from colonialism and gaining independence. Che Guevara, whose grandmother’s surname was Lynch, was another famous member of this diaspora. Guevara’s father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch, said of him
“The first thing to note is that in my son’s veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels”
Whether or not the interest in celtic-punk is linked to any of this is debatable and it’s more likely the love of a good auld time and a few beers plays its part as well. It is safe to say though the Irish in South America are very proud of their roots and their history is one that should be known by all.
The first McMiners release was the County Cross EP which came out in April last year. It has passed me by completely until I came to write this review so I revisited it and have to say I expected it to be a bit on the rough and ready side but it was actually very good. It’s four tracks included a extremely well played instrumental, a celtic-punk version of ‘Johnny I Hardly Knew You’ and a couple of their own compositions, one slow and a fast sea shanty that would befit any ship!
So after having a couple of listens to that debut EP I sat down with a big mug of tea and a packet of biscuits to have a listen to their new release, Tales of Betrayal and Deceit. It’s taken a while to cross the oceans as it came out in April earlier this year but man am I glad that it did do! The EP kicks off with the instrumental ‘No Deal’ and if you were expecting something slow and traditional then you were as wrong as i was! It’s fast and manic and dominated by Nícolas great bagpipes. This is the kind of trad music to wake up the masses!
(here’s a acoustic version of ‘Left Behind’ rather than the one on the EP)
In ‘Left Behind’ McMiners bring out both accordion and fiddle and the pace is still right up there. The lyrics speak of the poverty in their country and the ones left behind while obscene wealth is being made by some.
“We are the ones
They don’t care
We are the ones
They forgot about
We are the ones
Hopeless and f’-d up
We are the ones
Left behind”
The first release from the EP was ‘Behead The Captain’ for which they put out a great video and the pipes and fiddle are out again in force for this really catchy number.
Great lyrics as they are throughout the EP with no sign whatsoever that English isn’t their first language. Like Lugh they sing in English and while this no doubt helps reviewers like me I really don’t think it matters. Ironically last week we reviewed the new album from London band The Babes where Mao the Singer/bagpiper sings several songs in Spanish! The next song ‘A Prologue / The Jack and the Black’ begins with the sound of the ocean and seagulls and Karl Mooney, accompanied only by a distant acoustic guitar, the Dublin born native and singer of fellow local celtic band The Celtas (here) reads a short piece about two brothers one of whom becomes a priest and the other a soldier before suddenly the band storm in kicking down the door and launch into a lovely big slice of celtic metal with chugging guitar and vocals that would put the fear of God into you. Again intelligent and interesting lyrics and an obvious step above the usual ones about drinking. The EP ends with another instrumental ‘The Clauss’ and while the opening instrumental was classic celtic-punk this is much more of a traditional Irish folk number. The song was originally an improvised session recorded on a phone with Luciano on tin Whistle and the band’s former piper Ernst on the accordion when Ernst left Brazil and moved to Ireland. Still close the band decided to record the song as a way to tell him they missed him. At the very end you can actually hear the original phone recording of the song! Two bodhráns are joined by accordion and tin whistle and shows the folk purist snobs that they can both play their instrument and write an exceptional traditional song too. Here is another band that Brazilians can be proud of and believe you and me a triumph of quality over quantity!
(you can have a listen to Tales of Betrayal and Deceit before you buy it for free below on the Bandcamp player)
Buy Tales of Betrayal and Deceit
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